Ever wonder where bad Elvis impersonator and wannabe Kankakee ladies’ man Robert Roy Gary Hurlbutt was conceived?
It is no longer a secret. In fact, PJ Hurlbutt loves to remind her son Robbie about it in front of his boss and customers at Wally Green’s, much to the chagrin of that Elvis impersonator, vulnerable narcissist and petty criminal.
Kankakee Elvis impersonator and vulnerable narcadoodle Robbie Hurlbutt thinks he is Elvis. He posted this billboard to hopefully bring in some birthday cheer from the single ladies. Do you think it will work? Don’t lock him in the bathroom!
“Why does your brother Damien keep buying pool toys in the middle of Winter?” Wally Green asks his Illinois pharmacy-chain clerk, Kankakee Elvis impersonator and covert narcissist, Robbie Hurlbutt.
Robbie says nothing, chooses to ignore his boss and keeps on stocking shelves as he hopes to leave early so he can skip out on closing.
“Has he moved a body or something?” Wally says of Robbie’s equally creepy and narcissistic brother Damien.
Robbie ignores Wally, finishes stocking and sneaks out the door while the store owner is not looking so he can head down to the bar. First, he has to meet his speedball dealer.
Robbie, high on uppers, spends 20 minutes chatting up the bartender, while other customers grow impatient and angry as he is holding up the mixing of their cocktails and the pouring of their beers.
Robbie downs his downers and chases them with prescription painkillers he stole from his elderly mother PJ.
The inebriated Elvis impersonator texts his brother Damien, hoping he will join him and take him home, however after multiple selfies and text messages saying how much he loves his brother, Damien does not reply.
Cinema-13 clerk, bulbous neckbeard and communal narcadoodle Damien Hurlbutt strokes his dayglow-orange facial coiffe, and sets out a clipboard containing a sign-up sheet requesting email addresses for a newsletter. A theater customer walks up to the movie theater counter and asks what the newsletter is about. “It’s just a newsletter,” the sneaky narcissist Damien replies in his typical smug tone.
After the picture finishes its run and the ushers escort all the guests, Damien collects the newsletter sign-up sheet and heads to his Bourbonnais neckbeard-nest to sleep on the floor. Before he can retire for the night, he get annoyed over the mess of texts and photos from his brother Robbie. Damien would rather sleep in his mess of plastic tubs, and boxes of the things he loves more than people, than head back to Kankakee to pick up a drunk. Thinking he can gain something from helping his brother, he drives down to the Kankakee bar at which Robbie is performing slurred Elvis Presley Karaoke. The two bumbling idiots get into Damien’s beat-up van and head home.
“What about my purple clown car?” Robbie asks Damien.
“Get it tomorrow.”
Damien gets a text from a coworker whose birthday is coming up soon. Knowing well it is illegal to text and drive, Damien messages his coworker, lovebombing her about the $50 gift card he is going to buy her, bragging about the surprise she clearly expressed she did not feel comfortable accepting.
After nearly crashing, Damien flips off the other driver and heads to Robbie’s Kankakee apartment, crashing on his floor instead.
Damien and Robbie wake up to snow on the ground. Damien retells the same story about his father N. Ron’s obsession with the weather channels he has already bored Robbie with at least 80 times now. Robbie leaves the room, stumbling on record albums he dumped all over the floor to get to the bathroom. Even though he is terrified of getting locked in the washroom while pooping, Robbie wants to get away from Damien.
Robbie emerges, and Damien pulls out the newsletter sign-up sheet, filled with names and email addresses. “Hey Robbie, my number-one brother? I would love to ask a favor from you. Can you contact Pat Splatt and try to sell him these email addresses? I collected them to send out messages getting out the good things us tender-hearts at the Bourbonnais Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) Club can do to help us men fight misandry. I would like to sell him a copy because I need the money to buy my coworkers gifts. I spent my paycheck already on action figures.
“What’s in it for me?” Robbie asks his equally self-centered brother Damien.
“Well, our theater has an extra Gothic Diana Ross poster from when we sponsored her show a couple years back.”
“Sold.” Robbie grins ear-to-ear and dials up Kankakee criminal and email spammer Pat Splatt.
The Hurlbutt brothers drive over to Pat Splatt’s flat, where the straggly long-haired Pat is busy harvesting emails from the Internet using his Spam-O-Matic computer program. The three group together to organize their petty crime.
“Damien, I can pay you per email reply, that’s it.”
“Oh come now!”
“Oh go now, Damien. That is my final offer. Take it or leave it. I don’t have to offer you anything.”
“I know, I know, I know…” Damien says like a broken record, mimicking a certain furniture commercial emanating from Champaign.
Damien reluctantly hands Pat the photocopied sign-up list containing contact information he collected from unsuspecting moviegoers.
Damien then heads to Wally Green’s to buy more pool toys and chucks them in his bathroom. After whizzing, he washes his hands with far more water than he needs and sprinkles the water all over the bathroom floor, leaving on the bathroom light and fan because he does not care.
Damien begins typing up his MRA “newsletter” in a word-processor program on his 10 year old desktop computer, resting atop a wooden folding table, the only piece of furniture in the entire room. The rotund neckbeard emails his diatribe while wearing his graphic tee displaying the text:
“I can
EXPLAIN
it to you
But I can’t
UNDERSTAND
it for you.”
A few days go by, however nobody takes Damien up on his offer to join the Bourbonnais MRA Club. Nobody clicks on the ads for the 21 Conference either.
Damien realizes he needs to get ready for work now so he can make it on time after taking his two-hour shower.
Mr. Hurlbutt walks into the theater barely on-time. His boss, theater owner Konrad Teirant, calls him into his office.
Damien’s heart sinks and he utters a melodramatic “gulp” as he walks over to Konrad’s office.
“Damien, you really dropped the ball this time. I have been receiving numerous complaints from customers who have been getting emails about some misogyny club.”
“What?“
“This is unacceptable. They told me they signed up for a newsletter here? I never ordered you to or anyone else to put out a call for contact information. Do you want me to get sued?”
“Well…no” an embarrassed-because-caught Damien tells his boss.
“Damien, you have been working here a long time. You know that if we want to gather contact information so we can sell it, that would come from me. And only so I can profit, not you Damien. You’re not that important. Not at all. In fact, I can fire you at any time. I am telling you that because I am your friend. Oh by the way, why do you wear that dumb fedora? It looks stupid. And wash your beard. It smells. Don’t tell anyone we had this meeting. Go home and stay home the rest of this week. I will call you about next week’s hours.”
An excited Damien rushes home to play with his pool toys because he is happy he has the week off, not wondering at all if his boss will even call him back to work the next week.
Kankakee Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt — who believes he is the reincarnation of Elvis Presley — is number one in his own bathroom. Don’t lock him in.
“Are there squirrels along the boardwalk?” JK asks her daughter, who is busy munching away at her doggy bag.
“Mmmnnnpf” a hungry, occupied Sybil replies in the negative.
“Speaking of squirrels, where are our tickets to the squirrel petting zoo?” JK inquires.
Sybil digs around her black-and-white striped purse, and pulls out the envelope Robbie gave her.
“Coupons? I thought they were comping us. These only give us a dollar off! The admission is $20 a pop! And where are our hotel keys? They said they were getting that, too!”
“Ummmm…” JK’s jaw just hangs.
“I have a plan.”
“Are we still going to the show?”
“Aw yeah, we are going early, in fact.”
6:00 PM rolls around and Sybil has already gotten to the bar with her mom, JK. The two were a bit delayed by their detour to the novelty store.
“Where is the ladies’ room?”
The bartender points in the general direction.
Sybil and JK each take a stall and begin blowing up the inflatable women. Sybil applies makeup, a blonde wig and readers to hers and JK applies a short, gray wig and round glasses to her doll. They walk out the restroom and place their dolls in two seats toward the back of the bar.
Sybil and JK leave the bar, giggling as they exit. They head to a casino where they spend the night.
The Moronic Half-Assets (MHA) Vaudeville act begins. Konrad Teirant tells his awful puns, then his wife, Madeline Topolla-Teirant, the colorful clown, juggles and attempts to balance on a large ball. Robbie Hurlbutt, mediocre Elvis impersonator, sings and dances like the fool he is.
PJ Hurlbutt cheers on her son Robbie, who she thinks is the greatest singer, meanwhile Pat Splatt sits there in his seat texting.
The show ends and Robbie takes a head count.
“We’d like to thank our fans Pat, my Mom PJ, and our buddies Sybil and JK!”
“Encore! Encore! Encore!” the lone fan, PJ, shouts.
“Did you say encore? We aim to please. Robbie is going to serenade a special fan who came all the way from Kankakee, Illinois!” Konrad announces.
Robbie comes down from the stage, toward the back of the bar and begins to sing “Burnin’ Love”.
Robbie is in shock that the “person” to whom he is singing does not react, nor move at all. “She is not a sincere fan.” Robbie says into the microphone after his number.
“Robbie, you moron. That’s a blow-up doll!” Madeline shouts.
Robbie jumps back in sheer embarassment.
“Elvis has now left the building.” Konrad announces.
The Moronic Half-Assets pack up, ready to leave. “That was a bust. I got really flustered up there.” Robbie sighs.
“We did not return much on our investment, did we?” Konrad gripes.
“Time to pack up and leave. If we drive home in our clown car, and make it home without stopping, maybe we can make up for our losses. Time to go!”
Robbie is in the Men’s washroom, wizzing away.
“Robbie, why do you leave the door open? I tell you about that time and time again!” Madeline screams.
A loud slam is heard.
“Rrrrrrrrgh!”
“Robbie, you are not Elvis, and you are not going to die in there.”
The MHA members pack up their stuff, and Robbie follows them into his clown car.
“I wonder what act is up next?” Robbie asks.
“I guess we’ll never know. Step on it Robbie!”
An announcement is barely heard from the purple clownmobile as Robbie pulls away, and rolls up his window, Kankakee-bound:
“Next up, from Manteno, Illinois: Gothic Diana and the Midnight Supremes!”
“Rrrrrrgh—I love her! My dreamy—“
“Shut up and drive, childish little boy,” Madeline commands as the rain pours down and the moon shines down on the Moronic Half Assets.
Credit Recovery Associates (CRASS) Accounting Chief Konrad “Kon” Teirant is having trouble balancing the assets against the liabilities, even after having cooked the books to a carbonized mess.
Mack E. Avelli
Chief Executive Officer Mack. E. Avelli calls in Konrad to hold a meeting.
“Kon, if we cannot make ourselves look good to our investors, we are going to fail as a company. I don’t need you to be honest about it, I need you to make us some more money. Just get it done.”
“I’ll think up something. You won’t be disappointed.”
“Good,” the fifty-something Mack says to Konrad and starts texting his 22-year-old wife Judithann, who ignores his message because she is too busy flirting with daemons.
It is midnight here in Kankakee.
The fire alarm sounds for the third time this week at the Kankakee’s Best Low-Budget Apartments, complete with strobe lights, sirens and a man’s voice repeating the same message over and over again.
As the residents of this sorry apartment building wake up and use the washroom, Moronic Half-Assets (MHA) takes the elevator up to each floor in the tower.
“It is midnight and you know what time that is! Come on, guys, let’s all dance! Didn’t you see that four-page flyer we left on all of your doors telling you to exercise more? We knocked on your doors because we had nothing better to do! Resident deejay Konrad is on the ones and twos!” exclaims property manager, half-wit and sociopath Madeline Topolla-Teirant.
DJ Konrad Teirant picks some records out of his crate, and begins spinning and scratching, rapping over the music.
Resident Tyrell Fowler — out in the hall wondering what the racket is about — explains to Konrad “dude, you cannot scratch 1950s love songs,” and walks back into his unit.
“Let’s get out the glowsticks everybody!” Madeline says as she pulls them from the fire-hose compartment on the wall.
Robbie sings Elvis tunes as he dances away, doing moronic martial arts moves on the in-between.
Robbie Hulrbutt
The MHA troupe packs up their party-gear and heads upstairs to the next floor in the tower.
When the crew are all done waking up their residents, they head downstairs to the office and turn off the alarms. Finally those poor residents can get some sleep.
“Here is your check, Kon. We will write it off as a business expense here at the complex.”
“Great, I will bring it to CRASS tomorrow,” Kon tells his wife Madeline and they head home in Robbie’s clown car. Elvis has left the building.
“Oh good, I got it,” a resident says sitting in her bed, as she reviews the video she recorded on her phone.
Konrad Teirant heads into the CRASS office, strutting along the halls with a turd-eating-grin across his face as he makes his way over to the office of his supervisor, Mack E. Avelli.
“Kon! You have a great smile! You should smile more often.”
Kon hands Mack the knife…errrr…check.
“Oh good! Now you can keep your job!” Mack tells his subordinate Konrad.
Kon says nothing and heads back into his office to cook more books.
Meanwhile, the CRASS phones light up like a Christmas tree. However the increased call volume is not from debtors calling back the CRASS collectors.
“I saw that video on the news, your accounting dude and his buddies woke some poor folks up in the middle of the night hosting some hokey rave party? What were you thinking?”
Beep.
“Hey, this Trisha Cobb, better known as Gothic Diana Ross. You know, from The Midnight Supremes? We saw what you did when we watched the news. That’s not cool.”
Beep.
“Hello, this message is for Mr. Avelli. I am Geoff, an auditor with the firm Deltoid & Tush. We were asked to contact you about your accounting records. We are stopping by in an hour.”
“Kon, how do we cook the books now? Ya better cook them good this time,” Mack shouts to an empty room. Since he was up half the night, Kon took the rest of the day off to go home and now he is fast asleep, sawing a forest.
Local yokel and poor Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt has a huge crush on Gothic Diana Ross, lead singer from the Manteno band The Midnight Supremes.
Robbie stalks Diana on Fakebook and Utube, telling her she is the best diva on earth and she can be the boss of him anytime.
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